


Sojourner

by paradiamond



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Awkwardness, M/M, Robert & Mary, UST, canon divergence (I assume), ep 3.08, gift challenge, time to play don’t erase Mary, townhull
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-29
Updated: 2017-11-29
Packaged: 2019-02-08 05:16:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12857559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paradiamond/pseuds/paradiamond
Summary: Despite the fact that he wants nothing more than to get far, far away from Woodhull and his apparently insane town, Robert is forced to concede that neither he nor his horse are in a fit state to travel again so soon. Delayed by reason, Robert stays to rest at Woodhull’s farm before going back to York City, resentful and still residually furious. Then Mary appears.





	Sojourner

**Author's Note:**

  * For [writelights](https://archiveofourown.org/users/writelights/gifts).



> For my gift exchange! Writelights, I hope you like it! Your prompt was pretty open so I did more than one relationship focus, hope that works for you. Enjoy! (: 
> 
> Takes place immediately after the Townhull reunion scene in Mended. I was thinking, didn't Robert just ride all that way overnight? What is he going to do- turn around and do it again? Horse ain't cars either. Anyway here we are, in Townhull fantasy land. Also I love Mary.

Their business concluded, Brewster walks away without so much of a ‘by your leave.’ Robert glares at his back as he goes, melting back into the trees, no doubt to crawl back into whatever filth he’d emerged from before heading off to Washington’s camp. At his side, Woodhull is watching too, breathing evenly, gaze fixed. He had been that way, single mindedly focused on Brewster, on getting what he wanted from him, for some time. 

Robert eyes him suspiciously. The novelty of being able to watch Woodhull without being watched in return had long worn off. Still, it had been interesting to see from the sideline, to watch that kind of intent, gripping attention paid to someone else. Robert is used to it being on him, and he finds it irritating, just a bit. 

Look at me, he thinks. You owe me. 

But Woodhull doesn’t turn, and Robert’s work is finished, so he moves instead, looking to his horse. The muscles of his legs and back protest as he moves. He is a good rider, but not a terribly frequent one, and certainly not at that speed for that length of time. He pushes through it, reaching for the reigns, and Woodhull catches him by the wrist. 

The shock of skin on skin nearly knocks him over, and if he wasn't so surprised, he might have pushed him away. As it is, it distracts him. They haven’t touched with any sort of frequency since they’ve known each other. 

When Woodhull showed up at his boarding house for the second time, Robert had seized him by the arm, seeking to cause discomfort, too angry to think about what he’d done in the moment. It hadn't seemed to bother Woodhull much, not like like he felt it run up his arm the way Robert just did, or maybe he's better at hiding his feelings. Of course then Woodhull grabbed for him when Robert pushed back inside the house, far too aware of the moment and what it meant to him. But they hadn't touched skin to skin until now. 

“Wait,” Woodhull demands, still holding on and staring in his eyes. The shock of his full presence, or the reappearance of the person he decides to be when he’s alone with Robert perhaps, grips him, and he freezes on instinct. Woodhull peers at him, frowning very close to his face. “When’s the last time you ate? Or slept?” 

Robert leans away, and forcibly takes his arm back. “Yesterday, if you must know.”

“So the night before for sleeping,” Woodhull mutters, and looks over at the horse. “Probably the same for him.” 

“Her,” Robert shoots back, just to be contrary, but Woodhull simply nods, raising a hand to stroke her side. 

“Her.” He shakes his head. “We need to keep you as far away from Simcoe as possible, but that won’t do you any good if you fall off the horse. Or she trips.”

Robert presses his lips together, hard. The last thing he wants to do is agree with him. Most of the neutrality he had managed in the town and during the business of saving the Continental army had burned away, leaving a dull and too familiar ache. 

Still. His vision isn't at its best, and his limbs shake when he tries to stand too long. A rock to the head never did anyone any good. Any permanent injury he managed to do to himself in his stubbornness would haunt him for the rest of his life, and all because of Woodhull. 

“Is there an inn?” 

Oddly, Woodhull winces. “Deyoung's tavern has rooms. He was the man that pissed himself in the street. Also, Simcoe killed Robeson in there. I don't know if they moved him yet.” 

Robert stares, waiting for him to laugh. He doesn’t. “This kind of thing happens often, then?”

“More so than it should.” Woodhull shrugs, his tone falsely casual. “But not so much when Simcoe isn’t around.” 

Robert looks away, uncomfortable. The fields are sprouting, somewhat. “What is he supposed to be? Some kind of demon?”

“A monster fit for slaying.” Woodhull smirks, then he sharpens. “Did you talk to anyone? The soldiers must have noticed you.” 

“I told them that I was a visitor from York city, thinking of selling my business there, and looking into cheap land.” 

Woodhull nods, looking out at the fields that Robert had briefly considered as he rode up before being distracted by the house clearly in the process of being rebuilt, the wood still yellow with newness. The fields themselves are planted, but with what he couldn't say. Besides that, there's a shack on the verge of utter collapse and a slightly larger cabin that looks marginally better, and is likely where Woodhull lives, Robert decides. 

“Maybe you should.” 

Robert stares. “What?” 

“Look at land,” he clarifies, apparently ready to tackle the issue analytically instead of allowing his emotions to rule him. Although, Robert has to admit he hadn't seen much of that, not today and not during the accursed dinner. 

It occurs to him how much Woodhull had changed since New York. Since prison. Of course, he had obviously just seen him, but fear and the sharp sting of betrayal had blinded him to the shift. This is not a boy playing a man anymore. 

Woodhull is either unaware of or ignoring his musings, still thinking out loud. “Although, no. You’re more likely to draw attention to yourself that way. And it would make sense for you to have left when you saw the incident.” 

“Not to mention the officer screaming about burning fields,” Robert responds, dryly, and abruptly remembers that he’s angry, that he deserves to be angry. He crosses his arms tightly over his chest. 

There's only one clear choice, and he won't be the one to give voice to it. 

***

The door to the questionable cabin closes behind Woodhull, and suddenly Robert is alone. 

Woodhull had left him in his temporary lodgings to check on the town and, he said with a grimace, to return with better food. Robert doesn't bother to check what is already there, knowing that it will amount to nearly nothing. Woodhull did not have the look of a man who ate much the first time Rober saw him, too busy, too active to focus on his stomach. Now, he is practically skin and bones, constantly darting from place to place, never stopping long enough to eat. He should have recovered from his stint in prison by now, but not if he couldn’t be bothered. 

Oddly, Robert thinks of Thanksgiving, of the food that day before them. None of them had eaten that night, despite being surrounded by plenty. It had seemed impossible. Perhaps, he muses, watching Woodhull disappear through the window, that is how he always feels. Maybe the same would have befallen Robert as well, given enough time living in fear. 

Once Woodhull is fully gone from view, Robert spends the first twenty minutes or so just staring at the door and checking his pocket watch, annoyed at himself for giving in. Exhaustion picks at his spine, unignorable except for the fact that he is a business owner and therefore accustomed to pushing through. 

Exhaustion picks at his spine. Robert eyes the bed, and immediately notices that the headboard is pulled about five inches away from the wall, using the already limited space rather inefficiently. Annoyed by the obvious flaw, he walks across the small pace and pushes it back, taking a measure of satisfaction of the sound of wood against wood, of setting something to rights. 

Newly inspired, he glances around, eyeing the rest of the room critically, but can find nothing else he can change without significant effort or entirely new furnishings. He supposes he could clean, but that would be helping, and he’d done enough for Woodhull to last him a lifetime. He sits down in one of the two rickety chairs instead and crosses his arms, watching out the window. 

After a while, a figure appears up the path, too far to properly discern. He tenses, but judging from the lack of garish red or vibrant green, they are not a soldier. Still, Robert scowls at it, wondering which would be worse, Brewster or Woodhull. There is no good answer, not anymore, and Robert sighs heavily, resigning himself for the worst. 

Still, when he sees the figure turn into a woman, his heart sinks. It should not have been possible for Woodhull to irritate him more, but somehow he always manages to do so, even by proxy. He had felt much the same when Brewster showed up at the boarding house, pockets full of invisible ink. Of course, of course Woodhull would find a way to further insinuate himself into Robert’s life _from prison._

What he hopes is not Mary Woodhull continues coming towards the little house, all pressed and well put together and appearing so normal in contrast to Woodhull himself, Robert reevaluates his former position. He would much rather sit with either one of the spies than Woodhull’s wife. 

Robert watches with growing dismay as she comes all the way into focus and disappears behind the door. Never one to be rude, at least not to those who don’t deserve it, Robert steels himself and opens it for her before she has to knock. She leans back and regards him from the doorway, eyes wide and expectant. She is objectively beautiful, all clear skin and soft, gentle eyes, with a gleam of astute intelligence in their depths. She does not particularly look like the wife of a farmer. 

“Hello.” 

Robert tilts his head. For him, everything is more difficult with women, which is why he tends to leave it to others. “Mrs. Woodhull, I presume.” 

“Yes.” She looks him up and down, clutching a basket in two hands. “Mr…?”

Robert frowns. “Townsend.” 

“Mr. Townsend. I brought lunch.” She smiles lightly, clearly a practiced gesture, and enters, flipping her hood back and setting the basket on the scratched table. “I apologize for not knowing your name, but I’m given to believe that not many do.”

He lingers near the door. “I...should hope not.”

“We live in a rather tense environment at the moment, he wouldn’t risk your name while we were there.” 

Unsure of what to make of that, Robert turns away, looking for plates, or at least cutlery. “Should he be there at all?”

“Are you worried about him?”

Robert blinks.

“In any case, where is safe?” She eyes him critically. “You should sleep after you eat.” 

“I- yes.” Robert shifts his weight, trying not to fidget. 

Before, the mere mention of Woodhull’s family had made him uncomfortable. Now here she sits, the wife Robert had once taunted him with, the one that was supposed to marry the other son. Robert doesn't like to think about them much. To him, Woodhull always seems like he ceases to exist when he walks out of Robert’s life. Here is proof that he doesn't. 

It helps somewhat that Mary clearly has the sensible nature of his own mother. She waves him away from the few dishes he finds and sets the table like she would a grand house, blithely pretending not to notice the disarray with the ease of a good hostess. If anyone could make the cabin seem like a proper home, it would likely be her. Robert lingers at the edge of the space, fingers itching to help after so long working in service. 

It's a relief to sit down, settling into a part he knows from childhood, the comfort and safety of manners falling over them like a blanket. 

“How was your journey?” 

Robert takes a drink to give him time to formulate a response. She doesn't want the truth and he doesn't want to give it to her. “Rather painless, and the stars were beautiful.” 

She smiles. “I'm sure they're just as beautiful in York city.” 

It's like pulling a thread, every step laid out before them. “Have you ever been?” 

“No, I'm afraid not.” 

“I am not sure it is suitable for respectable women such as yourself.” 

Mary tilts her head. “No, but for spies it does nicely.” 

Robert pauses, thrown off. “I suppose.” 

Mary presses, either unaware or unconcerned with his discomfort. “I understand you are the reason my husband no longer has to venture there.” 

“I- yes that is my understanding as well.” 

“You do it for him,” Mary says, which sparks a deeply rooted shame in his stomach, mostly because it’s at least partly true. 

“I wouldn't say that.” 

Mary smiles thinly. “I wouldn't say a great many things, at least not before. When Abraham got involved, I could barely mention it to him, let alone to a stranger. But you're not a stranger to him, are you?” 

Robert looks away, down to his food, rather mortified at how she persists in discussing Woodhull. Their previous ease melts away, any silence now a hard line between them, a physical presence. He wants to crawl into a hole and never emerge, but still finds that he can’t quite be rude to her. It runs contrary to his instincts, not to mention his education. 

The more she speaks, showing the steel under her otherwise delicate frame, the more Robert thinks about what it would be like to deal with Woodhull every day, to be married to him, and then quickly buries the line. 

“The rebuild seems to be going well,” Robert comments, desperate for a new topic. 

Mary follows his gaze to the skeleton of the house. “Yes, he told you about that?” 

“No,” Robert admits. “We haven't...had a lot of time.” 

Mary drops her gaze. “I burned it down for our protection.” She looks back up, the move perfectly executed to catch whatever is on his own face. “I'm willing to do what I have to do to protect us.” 

Silence reigns between them as Mary eats primly and Robert tries to decide if he's just been threatened. When she notices that he's stopped, Mary stops pretending as well, folding her hands in her lap and regarding him seriously. 

“Are you married, Mr. Townsend?”

“No,” Robert snaps, and then checks himself. “Ma’am.” 

“Mary is fine.” Mary smiles, then it drops. “I suppose you don’t seem like the marrying kind.”

Robert stiffens. “Madam-”

“Neither was Abraham, I think, until duty asserted itself.”

Robert regards her silently before deciding to allow it. There seems to be no reason, and no use, in trying to dissuade her. If she wants to probe him for information, Robert can do the same. 

“More of the rebelling type?”

She smiles. “Always. Thank you for looking out for him.”

Robert’s eyebrows shoot up. “I’m not sure what you mean,” he says, which is true. 

“It was only an assumption, he’s brave but he needs a lot of protecting.”

“The cost of abandoning sense.”

“The benefit of a good match,” she counters. “I think you balance him out well. We both do.”

Robert doesn’t know what to say, so he puts more food in his mouth, wondering if the horse would die if he took it out now or not. If Mary notices his distress, she apparently doesn’t care, reaching out for another piece of fruit with a pensive expression. 

“When we’re young we love like children. War, spies, marriage, these things have a way of growing us up.”

Robert thinks of playing draughts with Woodhull in the dead of night, playing with fire. Of finding his father beaten, finding the thrill of the spy. Coming home to see it all fall apart, to see the man he’d come to love become the villain he’d sinfully sworn to defeat. Growing up indeed. 

“Has the ring aged you, Mr. Townsend?” 

He resists the urge to glare. “Perhaps it would be wise for you to go back to the house before it gets too late. That renegade Rogers is still out and shooting at people, as I understand it.” 

“He isn’t here.” 

“Forgive me, but you don’t know that.” 

Mary meets his eyes, steady as a soldier. “Yes, I do. I shot Colonel Simcoe.” 

Robert blinks, suddenly grateful for his time in the ring, skulking about with spies. It had certainly improved his already excellent self control. “I see.” 

He remembers pointing the empty gun at Rogers, the way his arm trembled, even after he dropped it. Mary pulled the trigger. 

“Do you?” 

He looks away first, unwilling to bring up the recent past to anyone, least of all to her. 

Mary sighs. “I apologize, it’s not very often one gets to speak about these things. Sometimes it can be a bit much.” 

Robert lets the tension in his shoulders drop, just a bit. “It’s quite alright. I am...sorry that you had to go through that.” 

She smiles at him, weakly. “So am I. But someone had to act.” 

“Someone always does,” Robert drawls, annoyed again, but somewhat relieved to finally arrive at the crux of the issue. “I suppose your husband sent you to speak with me about the ring?” 

“No.” Mary frowns. “Abe said you were out.”

Abe. Robert turns the name over in his head. 

“I am.”

“It took rather a lot to convince you, I understand.”

How much? Robert wonders, nervous at having her eyes on him, at having her think of him from this far away, even if she hadn’t known his name. He wonders how much Woodhull told her, how many details. The egg? Their game? 

Robert speaks very carefully. “It only took a moment to make the right choice. I am finished.” 

“Well, then.” She tilts her head, clearly processing this information. He can practically see the logic tables behind her eyes, all analysis and sharpness under an angelic guise and honey hair. 

Strangely, he feels obligated to explain, and maybe a vicious sort of pleasure in the prospect of telling Woodhull’s wife exactly what kind of man he is. Stony silence gives way as he outlines the events of Thanksgiving dinner to her in both highly specific and dry terms, giving her details of the betrayal, the shame of it. 

Mary listens, but ultimately seems unimpressed. “I see,” she says, turning the teacup around in her hands. 

“Do you?” Robert asks before he can help it, suddenly eager to throw her words back in her face, and desperate to make her understand, to see if she’s the one person in the world who can. 

She raises an eyebrow at him, looking close to throwing it all back in his face. “I think I see my husband rather clearly, yes. I know what it’s like to be betrayed by him. He thinks of things differently than we do, than most people do.” 

Robert has a vague sense of when she’s talking about. His father had spoken of the woman, Anna, and her apparent closeness to Woodhull. It’s not hard to imagine that this woman had known it too, and worse. She’d felt the fire, and the despair. He looks away. 

Mary hums. “I turned my heart away, you know. I resolved to love only my son, only to come back, different, but more aware. We’re a better family now, I think, even if we'll never fully be together the way that God intended.” 

Robert ducks his head, ashamed. “You are a very strong woman.”

She smirks at him. “You’re one to talk.”

He blinks back at her. “Pardon?”

“I heard you punched Caleb Brewster in the face,” Mary teases, looking so like Woodhull that it startles him into a laugh. 

***

After Mary takes her leave, Robert gives in. He pulls his boots off, takes his pocketwatch out to set it down on the table, and lays down in Woodhull’s bed. The thought preoccupies him more than it should, both in terms of the insistent scent of him that pervades the space and drives him to distraction and the perspective it forces on him. So like it’s owner. 

Robert looks up and first sees the plain ceiling, mocking him. There’s nothing there, nothing to chip away at dark or frightened thoughts. He folds his hands over his sternum and tries to relax, again imagining Woodhull doing the same. 

Woodhull. He supposes Mary is just as much Woodhull as Abraham. Would she fit in the bed with him if need be? He shifts, glancing to the side, and decides yes, but it would be rather tight. 

A flash of light catches his eye, and Robert glances down to see a gap between the wooden panels that make up the wall, just below chin level, near his shoulder. He stares at it for long seconds in silence, his throat on the verge of closing up before he pushes himself up and out of the bed to walk to the far end. Robert takes a deep breath and grabs the baseboard of the bed. Once sharp movement to get it going and he and pulls, dragging the bed about five inches away from the wall again. 

He gets back in the bed and rolls to his side, away from the crack in the wall. If Abraham had been there, he would be at Robert’s back, watching. Not thinking is not an option, but the road will be there whether he watches it or not. 

Robert closes his eyes, and counts. When he forgets to count, he falls asleep. As he falls asleep, he rolls over and onto his back, as always. When he wakes up, he senses that Woodhull is in the house. He turns his head away from the crack in the wall and finds himself being intently studied. 

In an unexpected show of decency, Woodhull glances away while Robert gets up. It makes him more suspicious than grateful, but he still makes full use of it. He had taken his tie off, loosened buttons, removed shoes. He feels naked. 

“Sorry about the ambush.”

“I suppose you didn’t send them.”

Woodhull looks back at him and blinks. “I meant Mary.”

“Oh.” Robert waves him off, busy trying to set himself to rights. “I quite enjoyed her company, actually,” he says, and is a bit surprised to find that he means it. 

“Should I be nervous?”

“Ashamed, more like.”

Woodhull looks away. Robert relents, as he usually does. Even when he does not deserve it. 

He finishes putting himself together and comes to stand behind the chair Woodhull is not sitting in, ignoring the pointed look it gets. “She claimed that you didn't send her to convince me to return.” 

Woodhull frowns up at him. “I didn't.” 

“Why not?” 

“I don't think she'd be the one to do it, even if that's what I was trying to do,” Woodhull says with that bizarre lack of shame he sometimes has. “Why did you come?” 

“I already told you,” Robert says, expecting Woodhull to cut him off. When he doesn’t, Robert resents being forced to continue. 

“I felt I had a responsibility.” 

Woodhull smiles. “One last time?” 

Robert narrows his eyes. “Yes. We’ve been through this.” 

Irritatingly, Woodhull hums and glances away, apparently secure in the knowledge that he knows something Robert doesn't. The birds in the trees seems loud through the cracks in the walls in the silence between them, thick in the air. 

“What,” Robert grinds out, frustrated with both of them. 

“Nothing.” 

“No, you-” 

“I think it’s too late now,” Woodhull says, leaning back in the chair to look up at Robert properly. “For you to back out? It’s too late. You’ll be bored in a week.”

Robert blinks, shocked. “Bored? You think I find this entertaining? My life is at risk.”

“Engaging then. A game finally worth your time.”

“It's not a game.” Robert scowls. 

Woodhull shrugs. “Then why treat it like one? Why draughts and not a simple conversation?”

“Perhaps I was trying to speak your language, to put it into terms you would understand.”

“Before running home to your father and telling him? So that he would speak to me-”

“I did not-”

“Yes,” Woodhull insists. “You did.” 

Robert scoffs and turns away, anger simmering in his blood. 

“Or did you just want to prove a point so you can lord your moral superiority over me?” Woodhull cocks his head. “Didn't do such a good job there. You wouldn't have pushed for this if you didn't want it. Better than me, sure, but you're not so pure.”

He whirls back around to face him again, hands gripping the back of the chair. “How _dare_ you.”

Woodhull shrugs and looks away, again. “I don't know.”

Robert leans back, feeling rather like a puppet with its strings cut. How Woodhull always manages this he will never know. 

They stay in silence for a few long minutes, one sitting and one standing, Robert too annoyed to speak and Woodhull seeming lost in thought. 

“You can ask,” Woodhull says, nonsensically. 

Robert looks up, frowning. “Ask what?”

“Anything. I'll tell you. I lied and now I owe you the truth, so just ask.” 

Robert eyes him suspiciously. “I don’t want to play your games anymore.” 

“Fine, I was just-”

“Fine. Do you love your wife?”

Woodhull blinks, caught off guard, either by the personal nature of the inquiry or by the fact that it had been Robert asking. It’s a cruel question, but he expects that Woodhull had long adjusted to cruelty on both sides, giving and receiving. In any case, once the surprise fades he doesn’t seem particularly bothered by it. 

“In the way you mean? No, I don’t. I never did.” 

“Poor woman.”

“Mary? She’s fine.”

“I expect it’s easy for you to say that.”

Woodhull blinks at him. “Now? Maybe, but it took us a while to get to this point.”

Robert gives him a long look. “What point?” 

Woodhull tilts his head, a gesture he had no doubt picked up from her. “Robert you- Mary knows about us.”

Robert draws back like he’d been slapped. “What?”

“She knows. Well, not about you, specifically, but-”

“There is no ‘us’ Woodhull,” Robert says, feeling the color rise in his cheeks. 

Abraham frowns at him, and Robert regrets the words. But he doesn’t take them back. They had never touched before today, suggesting otherwise is obviously ridiculous. 

“Fine. And to answer your questions, she’s my friend.”

Robert looks away. “Would you do it again? Marry her, I mean.”

“No. Guilt wasn’t a good enough reason.” He shifts in his seat, clearly uncomfortable. “But, that doesn’t mean we haven’t made it work.”

“How do you mean?”

“She’s pragmatic, you probably noticed. Keeping the family together has always been the most important thing to her, for Sprout. Once we...dealt with things in the open, it became a lot easier. We became better parents, and better friends.” 

“She loves you.” 

“I love her,” Abraham shrugs. “You can love someone without being in love with them. I just regret that she’s stuck with me.” 

“Well,” Robert says, trying to ignore how his heart pounds in his chest. “I don’t believe she regrets it.” 

“Neither do I, doesn't make it any better.” Woodhull shifts in his seat again, turning his attention back onto Robert. “Do you think you’ll ever get married?”

“No,” Robert says, immediately. “I know I won’t.”

“Not in your nature.” 

He shakes his head, not looking in Woodhull’s direction anymore. 

Woodhull makes a frustrated sound. “What would you have me do, if you could? It's not like I can go back in time. It’s not like we-”

“I know.” 

The silence settles in like a thick fog, uncomfortable against the skin. They need to have the conversation they need to have, and neither of them wants to start. Eventually, Abraham takes a deep breath. 

“Is it worth anything to apologize?”

“I don’t know. You haven’t apologized.” 

Woodhull is quiet for a long time. “I’m sorry that I hurt you, truly.” 

“But you’re not sorry about what you did.” 

It’s not a surprise, but it still hurts. 

“No. It was necessary. I can’t imagine not doing it.” 

“Why not?”

Woodhull is quiet for a long moment, so much so that Robert has to wonder if the offer to answer questions had been rescinded, if he had lied once again. 

“I can't have everything. I used to think- but I can’t. If I stop, I lose myself, if I keep going, I could lose my life. If I betray you I lose you, but if I don't, then I'm back where I started when I got out of prison.”

Robert stares at him. “That can't be it.”

“Back where I started,” Abraham continues, his eyes fixed on some point of the wall. “With blood on my hands. And I can't have that be for nothing, no matter what. This cause has to mean something because it does, it means everything. It's the future. I can't give it up for anyone, not even you.”

Robert breathes carefully and picks at the wood of the chair, giving up on keeping still. The walls are too close, it’s too much. But there’s nothing else to do. “Alright.” 

The sun is starting to creep down the horizon. Woodhull catches Robert looking at it. 

“Are you going to stay the night?”

Robert consider it, still looking out the window. There’s no going up to the main house Mary referred to, not with Simcoe there. He and Woodhull would have to stay here, in the cabin with the single bed. Either that, or Woodhull would leave. It would likely be down to Robert to tell him whether to stay or go. 

“No.”

The word ‘disappointed’ might as well be carved on Woodhull’s face, but he sets his hands on his knees and pushes himself up. 

“Well, I won’t keep you then,” he says, and immediately turns away, making himself busy with throwing the cheese and bread into a light bag, presumably for Robert to take with him back to York City. 

Robert stares at his back, his weak spots. His movements have the jilted economy of trying not to think that Robert knows well. Turn the mind off and let the body work. He reaches out to catch Woodhull by the elbow, interrupting it. 

Woodhull turns and blinks up at him. “What-” 

Without thinking too hard about his actions, Robert leans down and kisses him, chastely, simply because he’d wanted to. The first press of lips against his own is strange, alien. Robert tightens his grip on Woodhull’s arm as he shifts his head to the side, searching for a better angle. He can feel his breath on his face. 

Abraham makes a low sound in his throat and leans in, pressing for more, but Robert pulls away, for once following his own lead when it comes to this infuriating man. He’ll feel like a thief for the rest of his life, he thinks, but at least he’ll have something of his own to keep. 

Woodhull curls his fingers around Robert’s wrist, but loosely, giving him plenty of freedom. Not like last time, when Robert had to wrench himself away. 

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

A lie. Robert pulls away, taking the bag and pretending not to notice how Woodhull follows him out, watches him get up on the horse. 

He’s just over the hill and out of sight when he realizes that he’d forgotten his pocketwatch. He pauses on the hill, wondering how it could have happened until he remembers that it hadn’t been where he put it on the table, he would have see it there. 

One breath to another he realizes that Woodhull must have taken it, must have slipped it into his pocket, or down between the wall and the dresser. Stealing from him while he was asleep, the spy in the night, desperate for something on his own, like Robert has his kiss and the crack in the wall. Robert smiles, reaches down to pat the horse, and keeps going.


End file.
